Strawberry Coconut Mojito

One cocktail that just screams,"summer is finally here!" is a mojito. Because we grow mint in our backyard  there is usually not much of an excuse to not make one on a warm sunny day.

Last weekend the sun finally made a showing, we had taken the bully for a stroll up to the Proctor Farmer's Market where local strawberries were in abundance and we got a call from a friend who was looking to hang out on our sunny patio for the afternoon which inspired this cocktail concoction. 

We had some coconut rum ( not sure why or where it came from?) and the local strawberries and when we saw the mint we thought, mmmm....let's give a coconut, strawberry mojito a try.

Needless to say it was fantastic! Refreshingly minty with a hint of fresh strawberry.

Recipe:

Strawberry Coconut Mojito

10 fresh mint leaves 1/2 lime, cut into 4 wedges 4-5 sliced local strawberries 2 tablespoons white sugar, or to taste Place mint leaves and 1 lime wedge into a sturdy glass. Use a muddler to crush the mint and lime to release the mint oils and lime juice. Add 2 more lime wedges and the sugar, and muddle again to release the lime juice. Do not strain the mixture. Fill the glass almost to the top with ice. Add sliced strawberries.  Pour the rum over the ice, and fill the glass with carbonated water. Stir, taste, and add more sugar if desired. Garnish with the remaining lime wedge.

1 cup ice cubes 1 1/2 fluid ounces white  coconut rum 1/2 cup club soda (or diet 7up, leave out sugar if you use 7up)

Cucumber Basil Strawberry Smash

Been a bit busy is all we can say for our 4 month hiatus.We had  an absolutely beautiful weekend here in the Pacific Northwest so it was perfect to get our patio space set up for the summer days that we hope to enjoy. 

One of our favorite traditions to officially welcome the upcoming summer.

And along with a welcoming space to enjoy the warmth of summer comes a refreshing cocktail to toast it in with. 

This quick to make Cucumber-Basil-Strawberry Smash was a perfect treat to beat the "almost" heat of the first day of June.

RECIPE:

Cucumber-Basil-Strawberry Smash (adapted from June 2014 Rachael Ray Magazine)

3-5 Basil leaves

3 Cucumber slices

2 Strawberries sliced

3 oz. Vodka

Soda water/Lemon-Lime Soda or Limoncello

Use a wooden spoon to muddle/mash cucumber and basil in a tall glass. Add sliced strawberries. Fill glass with ice. Top with vodka and your choice of soda water, soda or limoncello. (Round 1 we used diet 7up, round two we used limoncello. Round 2 was pretty spectacular.)

Champagne Tangerine Mojito

Are you looking for a special Valentine kind of cocktail to celebrate your sweetie with this year? Well here's a good one for this time of the year.

We love tangerines during the winter, we love mojitos anytime of year, and champagne is always great especially on Valentine's day. 

Although we are definitely more likely to indulge in a mojito during the months of summer who says they can't be enjoyed anytime of year as long as you have access to fresh mint. 

Which luckily we do have access to all year round.

This is simple, fresh and celebratory.

ENJOY!

RECIPE:

Champagne Tangerine Mojito

1 oz. freshly squeezed lime juice
1 oz. freshly squeezed tangerine juice
1 TBLSPN superfine sugar
A handful of fresh mint leaves
2 oz. white rum
4ish oz. chilled champagne
Slice of tangerine for garnish

In the bottom of a wide mouth glass, muddle the mint leaves, sugar, and lime juice until the sugar is dissolved.

Add the rum and tangerine juice. Fill the glass with ice and top with champagne.
Garnish with tangerine slice.

Muddled Cherry Margaritas

We kind of like margaritas on the patio around here in the summer. We like them just a little bit.

And as much as we do love our margaritas sometimes changing them up a bit sounds good too. 

We had found these lovely local Rainier cherries at our farmers market and decided to try muddling them into a margarita to change it up a bit. We also love muddled mint into our mojitos so muddling cherries into a margarita sounded like something worth trying.

The result was sweet, sour and refreshing.


RECIPE:

Muddled Cherry Margarita

Cut lime

Salt

2 ounces tequila

1/2 ounce Triple Sec

1/2 ounce Grenadine

3 tablespoons lime juice

1/4 Cup cherries, pitted and cut in half

3 or 4 ice cubes

preparation

Rub the rim of a cocktail glass with lime, then dip in salt to frost. Muddle cut cherries with lime and ice. Combine remaining ingredients in a mixing glass and stir well. Strain into the prepared cocktail glass.

Dirty Shirley Cocktail

Do you remember Shirley Temples? No, not "the" Shirley Temple child actress, although I did love watching her on weekends as a kid too.

But I remember on special dinners out with my family as a kid my parents would let my sister and I order a Shirley Temple. Sweet and fruity with maraschino cherries on top. We both loved them and thought it was a very special treat when eating out.

So when looking for a nice cocktail to kick off our special Valentine's Day menu I came across the Dirty Shirley recipe on Pinterest and I thought what a perfect Valentine cocktail.

Here's what's on the Valentine's Day menu:

Dirty Shirley Cocktails

Mini-Lobster Rolls (originally posted Jan. 29th)

Iceberg Wedge with Warm Bacon and Blue Cheese Dressing 

Braised Beef Short Ribs

Cream Puffs with Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce

Pink, light and fruity. I decided to change it up a bit since fresh cherries in Winter are not readily available using both raspberry flavored vodka and fresh raspberries instead of cherry. 

A great simple and festive cocktail to kick off a nice romantic Valentine's meal. Since they are sweet one is plenty and since we wanted to have wine with our meal that was perfect all the way around.

A good cocktail for Friday or for a Valentine's Day celebration.

RECIPE:

Dirty Shirley Cocktail (makes 2 cocktails)

4 oz. Raspberry flavored vodka

1 splash grenadine flavoring

8 oz. diet citrus flavored soda

Fresh raspberries

ice

Pour into each glass 2 ounces of vodka, a splash of grenadine and 4 ounces of citrus soda. Fill glasses generously with ice cubes. Add fresh raspberries. 

Limoncello

Each year we look for some small token we can share from our kitchen with family and friends for holiday giving. The past few years it had been Dark Chocolate Covered Salted Caramels. But this year we were looking for a new "gift" to give.

We came across some lovely looking Meyer lemons at Costco that prompted us to try to make some limoncello that we had always talked about making. 

Then we found a recipe on Food Network by Giada that we thought we'd give a try. And really as long as we planned ahead it was a doable project. Zesting the lemons was tedious but with both of us doing it together it went pretty quickly actually.

After letting the lemon rinds infuse in the vodka for 4-5 days you add some sugar and water and let it sit one more day.

Really the most challenging part of this project was finding some cool vessels to bottle them in.

It was a great project and a small way to share our home with the ones we love for the new year.

RECIPE:

Limoncello (adapted from Giada De Laurentiis)

10-15 Meyer lemons

1 (750-ml) bottle vodka

3 1/2 cups water

2 1/2 cups sugar

Using a vegetable peeler, remove the peel from the lemons in long strips (reserve the lemons for another use). Using a small sharp knife, trim away the white pith from the lemon peels; discard the pith. Place the lemon peels in a 2-quart pitcher. Pour the vodka over the peels and cover with plastic wrap. Steep the lemon peels in the vodka for 4 days at room temperature.

Stir the water and sugar in a large saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes. Cool completely. Pour the sugar syrup over the vodka mixture. Cover and let stand at room temperature overnight. Strain the limoncello through a mesh strainer. Discard the peels. Transfer the limoncello to bottles. Seal the bottles and refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours and up to 1 month.

Serrano Citrus Margarita

If you dropped by this space at all this summer you know jalapeño drinks have been frequenting our palates a lot lately. 

Along with jalapeño we've also been experimenting with Serrano chiles as well. This drink , our Serrano Citrus Margarita, kicked off our recent Mexican Flavored Feast. 

We started with some good blanco or silver tequila. There is no better tequila in my opinion for a margarita than a good blanco. In Mexico we typically use Don Julio because you can get a bottle that cost almost $60 here for around $20. Lately G has been buying this locally made; Espolon brand for margaritas. Blanco tequila along with some lime, orange, serrano and a bit of blue agave nectar for some additional sweetness. 

To replace the usual salt on the rim we used a brand of Mexican chile powder we use often on fruit to keep with our Mexican flavored theme.

This was is a refreshing only slightly spicy margarita that was the perfect kick off to our feast. And it will make a great drink to indulge in this weekend as well.

Happy Friday to you all!

Recipe:

Serrano Citrus Margarita 

2 Limes, squeezed

1/2 orange squeezed

2 shots blanco tequila

1 serrano chile, finely sliced (remove seeds if you want less heat)

1 Tblspn. blue agave nectar

2 cups ice

Pour tequila into shaker, squeeze citrus into shaker with chiles and agave. Muddle with a muddler or end of a wooden spoon. Add ice and shake until shaker is frosty. Use lime to moisten edge of glasses and turn into a bowl of chile powder to rim edges. Pour margarita into glasses, fill with ice. Add wedges of lime & orange.

Classic Lemon Drop

This past fall at the beginning of the school year we had an "unusual" work stoppage , teacher strike,  situation that provided some additional beginning of the year stress for my principal colleagues and myself. This stress also provided some additional time in September to drink together in support of this most stressful experience. And for a few of my favorite "gals" & I it provided an opportunity to drink some crazy strong Lemon Drop martinis to drown our unfamiliar sorrows in.

Lemon Drops have long been a fav of G & I. We have a fav spot to have them in Portland called Paddy's. They truly make the world's best lemon drop and guess why it is the world's best? I bet you didn't guess it....it's some added orange that's the kicker. One of our Paddy's waitresses actually shared the secret with us on one of our visits.

And ever since we've made them similarly. A lemon drop is such a fresh and tart drink. And that's another trick, a really good lemon drop shouldn't be too sweet. We've had way too many sweet lemon drops that are just plain not good. 

For us a good lemon drop has just a very slight sweet hint in the background. We actually have been using agave nectar when we make them at home in place of sugar which works so perfectly.

We'd love to know what's your favorite "go to" cocktail?

Recipe:

Classic Lemon Drop Martini

1 oz. vodka

1 oz. citron vodka

1 tsp. agave syrup

1 juiced orange/clementine/tangerine (your choice)

1 juiced lemon

1/2 C ice

2 tspns superfine sugar

2 tspns lemon zest

Place vodkas, agave and juiced citrus into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigorously until sweat forms outside of shake.

Mix together the superfine sugar and lemon zest on a plate. Use a lemon slice to moisten the edge of your martini glass. Turn martini glass into the lemon-sugar mixture to "rim" the glass. Pour drink from the cocktail shaker into the martini glass. ENJOY!

Tangerine Mojito

When our mint starts to go crazy we start thinking of recipes to put it to use. Besides our Thai   Mint Chicken salad (Larb Gai) we most often start concocting different versions of mojitos like this citrusy Tangerine Mojito to make use of this delicious herb.

This is a refreshing perfect for summer cocktail at our home.

We encourage you to make one to enjoy this summer.

RECIPE:

Tangerine Mojito

Ingredients

• 1/2 tangerine
• 2  limes
• 2 teaspoons organic blue agave syrup
• 1 or 2 sprigs fresh mint
• 2 1/2 ounces white rum
• 4 ounces club soda
• Slices of both tangerine or lime 
• 1 cup ice

Directions

Squeeze the tangerine, limes and put agave syrup  into a cocktail shaker. Muddle the mint in a large rocks glass by pressing them with a pestle or a wooden spoon until juicy and fragrant add to shaker. Add the rum and ice. In a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously, or stir, until combined and chilled, about 30 seconds. (In general, by the time the shaker mists up the drink is ready.) Serve in a glass with the tangerines and limes.

Jalapeno Margarita

Yep, you read the title correctly it does say "Jalapeno" Margarita.

Don't run away yet it really is good. And it's not necessarily as spicy or hot as you might think.

G got really excited about these drinks on our Spokane trip a few week's ago (linked) while drinking these insanely good Serrano cilantro drinks. Since then he's been trying to perfect his version.

The original drink that inspired G's version

Sometimes he uses jalapeno, other times he uses Serrano it mostly depends on what we have on hand or what looks best at the market.

The spice is just a slight hint in the background of each drink, unless you add too many seeds or too many chiles.Then you bet you're mouth will be on fire. And of course you can adjust the amount of chile and seeds to your liking.

As we are trying to cut down on sugar we've been using agave syrup lately to replace the sugar and let me tell you agave syrup makes a great cocktail.

For this particular margarita we used Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Raw Blue Agave version that I received as "swag" from the Blogher conference last weekend. The syrup cuts down a step of needing to make your own simple syrup and it tastes even better in our opinion.

We wish you a great weekend and we're pretty sure our Friday will include a few of these jalapeno margaritas.

Give one a try, we dare you!

Recipe:

G's Jalapeno Margarita:
1 oz of good quality blanco (silver) tequila
2 tsp Wholesome Sweetners Organic Raw Blue Agave
2-5 slice of jalapenos w/seeds (depending on tolerance)
1-2 Tbsp of cilantro
4 oz. Club soda
2 limes juiced

In a cocktail shaker add jalapenos, agave, and cilantro and muddle. Add tequila, lime juice, and ice and shake. Pour into a glass and add Club soda-stir. Garnish w/ lime and jalapeno.



Strawberry Sangria Light

There are few things that I crave more when spring finally arrives here. One being fresh Washington grown strawberries. And two sangria. This strawberry sangria recipe brings them both together in one perfect craving quencher.

Since we have consciously been looking at ways to keep our daily diet a little more on the healthy side currently around here I was excited to experiment with a lighter version of sangria cutting the wine in half by adding soda water in it's place and omitting sugar all together. With strawberries this fresh and sweet no extra sugar is needed trust me you won't miss it.

I love how simple and free you can get with a sangria recipe. Clean and slice some of your favorite fruit combinations. For this one I went with strawberry as the main flavor component. Added some blueberries as well because I love the combo of strawberry and blueberries mixed together. Then I added one half of both a lemon and a lime because with white sangria especially I always like to add a bit of citrus. Sometimes I go with mint as a contrast but since I planted 2 basil plants recently I went with basil this time. I really like the way strawberries and basil play together.

For wine  I went with a Columbia Crest Pinot Gris. I typically use a Sauvignon Blanc or Fume' Blanc but I had this on hand. And given I was adding soda water I didn't want to splurge on the wine. 

The experiment was a hit. A light, fresh and fruity sangria perfectly refreshing.

I was a bit too anxious to give my experiment a try to let the fruit sit in the wine as long as I think it would of really needed to bring out the flavors fully. But even after 3 hours the fruit flavor was there. Pretty sure we'll continue to make lots of non-light sangria recipes in our future but when we do want to be intentional in making sangria a bit more healthy it's great to have a recipe to turn to.

Strawberry Sangria Light Recipe:

1/2 bottle of pinot gris, sauvignon blanc or fume' blanc wine

3 cups soda water

1 pint strawberries, sliced

1/2 pint blueberries

1/2 lemon, sliced

1/2 lime, sliced

several sprigs of basil

Add fruit and basil to the wine and add 3 cups soda water. Let sit for at least 3 hours in the fridge but preferably over night so fruit soaks up the wine and wine becomes infused with the fruit flavor.

Watermelon Martini

With our Northwest weather attempting to hang onto every last minute of Summer there is left we're following suit and treating September as the July we never had.

Watermelon martinis sounded like the perfect late Saturday afternoon treat.

Super simple to make.

3 simple ingredients: Vodka, Watermelon and Lime.

We first chopped the watermelon into manageable chunks. And muddled through a fine sieve strainer. (You could also blend them or put in the food processor and then strain..but today I was too lazy to pull out the blender or food processor.)

We muddled about 2 cups of watermelon juice. This was a very sweet watermelon so it was perfect.

We poured the watermelon juice into the cocktail shaker, along with 2 squeezed limes and 2 shots of vodka. Added ice and gave it a good shake.

They were great. Fresh, sweet and ultimately refreshing to end a beautiful day on the patio.

Our martini glasses are rather Grande' sized so it made approximately 3 martinis. But with smaller glasses it would of easily made 4.

Watermelon Martini Recipe:

Fresh Seedless Watermelon: cut into chunks, enough to make 2 cups juice (amount of watermelon depends on the watermelon..we used approximately 1/2 of a personal sized watermelon.)

2 Limes

2 Shots of vodka

Juice watermelon through fine sieve strainer or in blender. Pour juice of watermelon and 2 limes into cocktail shaker with vodka. Fill shaker with ice and shake until cold & frothy. Serve with a fresh slice of watermelon.